About me
I’m Jack Gillum, an investigative reporter at the Associated Press.
I graduated from Columbia University with a master’s degree in journalism, and from Santa Clara University in California with a degree in political science. To be sure, the best training has come from talented reporters and editors I’ve worked with in newsrooms across the country.
Enterprise, data-driven journalism
I believe that strong, in-depth journalism is essential for people to make decisions in a free society. To that end, I am a big proponent of teaching other reporters and editors how to access and query data, particularly since so much information these days is electronic and paperless.
Much of my in-depth work relies heavily on computer-assisted reporting, using databases and programming to sift through the massive world of information out there. I also use this site to post thoughts on interesting trends in reporting.
Visit my clips page for links to some of my enterprise stories.
Web programming and development
In addition to old-fashioned journalism, I also enjoy Web development and work on Web-based applications.
I am a big fan of Perl and PHP, and I like MySQL for database applications. Lately, I’ve been working with frameworks like Ruby on Rails and Django, and haven’t decided which one I like more. I love Apple and my MacBook Pro for working in Photoshop, Illustrator or Flash. I usually dual-boot into Windows to use ArcGIS and Microsoft Access. For a quick and reliable server solution, I prefer Debian Linux.
